City Winery Wine: Actually, Not Bad!

While I always liked the idea of Michael Dorf's City Winery—the bar, restaurant, music hall and working winery situated in the heart of Tribeca—I was also more than a little skeptical of the kind of wine the place would turn out. A music impresario who fell in love with wine and suddenly decided to make his own? Hmm. Of course, my feelings about the possible product didn't matter in most cases, since I would never taste it; most of the barrels are privately owned by celebs and rich enthusiasts who have the bucks to heavily invest in their passion for vino. But Dorf said early on that some barrels would be reserved for use in the restaurant and be served by the glass. I was intrigued, but would the resultant wine actually be good-good, or just good-interesting?

I tried a few times last spring to sample one of the house wines, but the staff could never tell me if the stuff was actually ready to serve yet. So I gave up on the quest for a bit. The other day, however, I renewed my mission, and scored. There was Zinfandel, there was Chardonnay, there was Rose. What would I like? Since it was 11:30 AM (hey, you sieze your opportunities when they arise), I went for the white.

I was poured a nice, ample dose of a sunny, golden liquid. It was 100% Chard, I was told, from Lake County, California, fermented in steel tanks, unfined and unfiltered. For seeing no oak, the white still possessed a ripe roundness. It's was pleasingly medium-full in body, with some impressive acidity supporting the flavors of green apple and pear. I have to say it was rather well done for a first try, quite fresh and attractive. Nice job.

The homemade hooches are given snappy names. The Chard is called Downtown White, while the red has the much cooler name of Van Dam Zin (named after nearby Van Dam Street). I didn't try the Zin, because it was a whopping 15.5% alcohol. I sniffed a bruiser and I didn't want to spoil the pleasant impression left by the Chard. Another time.

A Priorat Find

I won't pretend to have tasted every new wine at the recent Martin Scott fall portfolio showing a week ago, but of the wines I did taste, there was one find that stood out.

This was the new Ferrer-Bobet, a youthful new vineyard in the Priorat region of Spain. It's run by two friends, Sergi Ferrer-Salat (who was at the tasting, a tall, gangling young man with curly black hair and thick black glasses; a picture of the young hip winemaker if there ever was one) and Raul Bobet. They preach respect for Priorat's terroir and are committed to showing it in their wines. The duo are using some of the oldest wine in the Priorat region, including 100-year-old Grenache and Carignan wines. The wines are at high elevations and primarily lie on slate soil (known as "llicorella" locally, and a type of slate soil supposedly only seen in Priorat). The height allows for optimum ripness while preserving acidity. Each parcel is vinified individually. The wines are aged in French oak barriques for a minimum of 15 months and bottled unfined and unfiltered.

These guys seem to put a lot of thought into everything. Their winery building is itself both a wild modernist thing and a gesture toward environmental harmony. Perched on a cliff overlooking a steep valley, its curved lines look like the hull of a ship about to set sail into the Spanish air. Only one story, housing the visitor center, is visible to the eye. Most of the winery is located underground, like some top-secret lair. Alien could have designed it, then left Earth, leaving us mortals to wonder what they were up to. Yet, it melds seamlessly into the landscape, like just another rocky outcropping.

Six years of work produced the two men's first two bottlings: Ferrer Bobet 2005 and Berrer Bobet Seleccio Especial. The 2006s were on offer at the Martin Scott event. I found both to be marvelously well-balanced, structured wines, fresh-tasting with deep and complex fruit and soil flavors, marvelously redolent of their terroir. On first taste, they reminded me of the wines of another nearby producer, Capcanes, located in the southeastern appellation of Montsant, particularly their excellent Peraj Ha'abib, which also uses Grenache and Carignan. The Ferrer Bobet is 70% old Carignan and 30% Grenache with 15% alcohol. The Seleccio Especial is 95% Carignan and only 5% Grenache. It is aged in barrels 18 months and in bottle 11 months. Again, it is 15% alcohol, yet the wine is nimble on its feet.

The leading wine magazine in Spain has called Ferrer-Bobet the best wine in Spain for two years running. They don't seem as well known in the U.S. yet. That can't last, particularly since the entry level wine is priced well below what it goes for in Spain.

The Sipping News

Not every grape is suited for sparkling wine. [NY Times]

Time Out New York reviews Long Island City's new Dutch Kills.

Bittermans, the German bitters makers, is partnering with America's The Bitter Truth to bring their bitters Stateside. The official release is in July.

A bit of old style wine advertising from Sonoma. [Dr. Vino]

Burgundy house Joseph Drouhin is relaunching its Chablis wines under the Drouhin Vaudon banner. [Decanter]

Jamie Goode likes Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Artemis Cabernet Sauvignon. Well, don't we all?

New York City Wineries

My first article for Decanter magazine appears in the June issue of the London-based publication. It's about a couple of the new New York City-based wineries, the scruffy Angels' Share in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and the tony City Winery in SoHo. Both places now have their own wine out. Can't wait to taste both.

Here's the article:

Few labels surprise wine-savvy New Yorkers. A Chardonnay from Virginia? Had it. A Cabernet Sauvignon–Shiraz blend from India? That too. But this year more than a few eyebrows may cock at the sight of bottles that read ‘Made in Manhattan’, or ‘Made in Brooklyn’.
The locavore trend, which has infected every part of the New Yorker’s diet from greens to cheese to beer, has finally hit the cellar. Urban wineries have arrived, in places as far flung as San Francisco, Kansas City and, now, New York. Former music impresario Michael Dorf has erected the sleek City Winery in Tribeca. And Mark Snyder, another music industry refugee (he designed sound for acts like Billy Joel before becoming a wine distributor), has created the more rustic Angels’ Share in Brooklyn’s desolate Red Hook district.

‘It’s very timely,’ said Leslie Townsend, former director of Astor Center, the liquor education institute connected to Manhattan’s Astor Wine & Spirits. ‘People want to reconnect with the things they’re consuming.’

LeNell Smothers, owner of LeNell’s, a liquor store near Angel’s Share often identified as the best in New York, also believes urban wineries are viable propositions. ‘The whole eat and drink local slow-food movement has become part of New York City fashion,’ said Smothers, who bottles and sells her own rye whiskey. ‘It’s sexy to support local projects.’ She plans to carry Angel’s Share wines at her store, as does the celebrated nearby restaurant The Good Fork.

While often lumped together, City Winery and Angels’ Share are as different in character as the neighbourhoods they call home. Snyder sources grapes solely from the nearby North Fork of Long Island, and has enlisted the skills of Californian winemakers Abe Schoener and Robert Foley to create idiosyncratic wines in a drafty, bare-bones warehouse near the Brooklyn Waterfront. The wines will be made available to the public through restaurants and wine stores. Snyder hopes they will serve as examples of what can be done with Long Island fruit.

Michael Dorf’s approach is as much about wine lifestyle as wine. Subscribing to the ‘wines are made in the vineyard’ theory, he has trucked in grapes from California, Oregon and elsewhere. Barrels are privately owned by winery members who pay $5,000/£2,025, plus fruit and barrel costs. Moreover, the winery is part of a larger complex that includes a coffee bar, cheese case, restaurant and music stage. A music line-up will feature artists drawn from Dorf’s connections as former director of the downtown Manhattan concert venue The Knitting Factory. A fifth of the wine stock will be available to customers by the glass and bottle. Snyder expects his first bottling in April (perhaps a rosé or Sauvignon Blanc); Dorf in May. Both men are hazy on prices, but pledge to price ‘competitively’, to introduce people to the wines.

But New York City wines have a hook beyond low cost and local appeal, according to Belinda Chang, sommelier at The Modern, a wine-destination restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art. ‘90% of a wine sale is what you can tell the guest about the wine, and these have a pretty great story. If the quality is there, people will definitely want to try them.’